NCIS devotees who can’t wait until September to get their next Brian Dietzen fix, you’re in luck. The fan favorite, who plays junior medical examiner Jimmy Palmer on the hit CBS drama, has co-written and stars in a new indie romantic dramedy, Congratulations (available July 30 on Video on Demand).

The role is a bit of a departure from the recently wed Jimmy: Dietzen plays a lovesick schlub whose longtime girlfriend (Justified’s Abby Miller, who also co-wrote the film) rejects his marriage proposal. “The character is very different,” Dietzen says, “although the marketing-slash-producer part of me wants to say, ‘It’s just like Jimmy Palmer in a movie! Let’s see if we can get 22 million people to watch this!'”

As for what’s coming up on NCIS’s new season, Dietzen pleads ignorance. “I was live-tweeting the finale with [executive producer] Gary Glasberg, and I looked at him and said, ‘What the hell just happened?'” remembers Dietzen of the puzzling cliffhanger that depicted Gibbs (Mark Harmon) as a sniper. “And he said, ‘You’ll figure it out next season.’ I said, ‘Come on, I’m in the cast — I’m not gonna tell anybody!'”

This much Dietzen can say: “There’s a baby in the future for Jimmy and his wife, Breena [Michelle Pierce]. We’re going to try to adopt. But outside of that, Gary hasn’t told me anything. I’m gonna take him golfing and pry him for answers.”

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NCIS starts shooting in a few weeks. Any info on whether Cote de Pablo will be with us for Season 11? I’m really starting to stress out about this. –Emily
You and me both. I gotta be honest, I’ve been working the phones and the cone of silence surrounding this sitch is growing… conspicuous. After all, it’s not like Ziva was left dangling from the ledge of a skyscraper and it’d be a massive spoiler to say De Pablo was on board to return. Then again, show boss Gary Glasberg did say (way back in April), “I’m confident that things will work out” with her deal.

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Does NCIS plan on continuing the storyline regarding McGee’s father having Stage 4 cancer? –Jeannie
Show boss Gary Glasberg was “really pleased” with that March episode, “Squall,” and how it built to “an understanding — and a resolution — between the two characters.” That said, and though it’s too soon to tease Season 11, he says the storyline “is certainly something that we’ve left open and that we’d like to revisit, not only dealing with the admiral’s health issues, but in terms of what their relationship is moving forward.”

What happened the third NCIS spinoff? Are they going to do it, or did it die and nothing has been said? –Lori
NCIS: Red be dead. Granted, we never reported that outright during the madness of Upfronts, but it’d take an epic poem to detail every pilot that does not make the cut.

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Question: What is your opinion on the will they/won’t they dynamics on the NCIS franchise? I have enjoyed both the Tony/Ziva relationship on NCIS as well as the Kensi/Deeks relationship on NCIS: LA. But after eight years on NCIS Tony/Ziva has not shared their first “real” kiss, while after only four seasons we got to celebrate one for Kensi/Deeks. Since both shows have the same premise, why do you think the original NCIS is holding back on advancing the Tony/Ziva relationship in the same manner? I know a lot of shows cite Moonlighting as their reasoning, but I feel that shows like Castle proves it can work. — Cheryl

Matt Roush: There’s a difference between a show like Castle, whose entire premise is built on a core relationship and calibrating the sexual-romantic tension from season to season, and an ensemble drama like the NCIS shows, where a different balancing act is required. I’ve often felt the mothership’s show runners have kept Tony and Ziva on a very slow burn so they don’t overwhelm and take over the show with a workplace love story. I’m not a regular NCIS: LA watcher (my rule: one is enough for almost any franchise), but Kensi and Deeks aren’t nearly as central to the action as Tony and Ziva are in their world, so there’s less risk involved in moving their relationship forward. That’s just my theory, but it makes sense to me. And for what it’s worth, no one really believes in the Moonlighting curse. It’s all about the execution.

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I know Gary Glasberg has mentioned we will see the events that led up to the cliffhanger with Gibbs in the NCIS finale. But will we also get to see what McGee, Tony and Ziva have been doing in their four-month absence? I’m eager to see how they adapted to life outside NCIS and without Gibbs’s rules (particularly Rule No. 12). –Cheryl
If I’m any good at reading between Glasberg’s lines, viewers will be made privy to at least some of that when Season 11 arrives. “The season opener is going to take us from where we left off all the way up to the point where we’re seeing Gibbs,” he says, As for Tony, Ziva and McGee in particular, “There will be a portion in which they’re still resigned, and then it’ll develop from there. I don’t want to give too much away about the opener yet, but we’ll learn what happened with Tony and Ziva and McGee, I promise.”

I’m curious as to your thoughts on NCIS‘ baiting of “Tiva” fans without delivering. This season, especially, saw the showrunner pushing the notion of the couple becoming a reality, yet once again it did not happen. Even worse, [the finale] found them calling each other “friends,” the same label they applied to each other in Season 9′s “A Desperate Man.” Do you as a reporter find it difficult to see these things teased, when they never come fruition? Or do you think it’s just part of the game and “business as usual”? In addition, do you feel that at some point this bait-and-switch will impact viewership? –Dee
A very sound question, because as you note, I have long witnessed this to-and-fro as well. Quite honestly, I think NCIS and show boss Gary Glasberg face a tremendously difficult juggling act with this (would-be) couple because it is TV’s most watched program, and like a game of Jenga, you can’t be quite sure which slight move could send things toppling. Is NCIS No. 1 because it metes out exactly 25 milligrams of romance every third episode, and never a bit more? Is there a fear that going all-in with Tiva will soap up the show too much? Look at the comments sure to populate below; if one out of three is against the coupling, does that confirm the show would risk disenfranchising some 5 million viewers? (And if you do put them together, will the outcry nonetheless continue if “not enough” intimacy is displayed, a la Castle, presenting a no-win scenario?) All I can do on my end is press for some semblance of concrete evidence behind any loaded quotes (about any topic), then trust the show will follow through to some degree.

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Got any NCIS scoops, particularly on McGee? –Marla
As revealed in the season finale, Tim’s got himself a new honey. And though show boss Gary Glasberg has yet to decide what “type” the mysterious Delilah is, viewers will eventually get to lay eyes on her. “I’m hoping to pick [that storyline] up and explain more — and hopefully, at some point, we’ll get to meet Delilah, as well,” Glasberg says.

The CBS Fan Awards are back. This time they have Five different catagories, Best “Tell it like it is” moment, Best “oh no they didn’t” moment, Best Butt-kicking moment, Best Chemistry Moment and Best Dynamic Duo. NCIS is nominated in Best Butt-kicking moment and Best Dynamic Duo, so be sure to go and vote for NCIS.

NCIS | To Inside Liners Nisha, Joyce and others, this is for you. With many “Tiva” fans fretting that the pair’s season-ending heart-to-heart essentially landed Tony in the dreaded Friend Zone, showrunner Gary Glasberg maintains that over the course of Season 10, “We made huge strides. Their relationship has evolved, has changed. They’re a little more open with each other and a little more emotionally connected, certainly more than where we were at the beginning of the season.” With that same passionate group of ‘shippers having been vested in “The Year of Tiva” (a mantra initiated by, I believe it was, Michael Weatherly), Glasberg admits the couple’s closeness “may not be the big leap that a lot of people would like it to be, but I also feel like we’re enjoying the pace at which this is happening. That’s not to say we’re not headed in the direction everyone would like to go, but I think we’re getting there.” As the EP explains, “It’s very complicated when two agents who are working together get into a relationship, and that’s something that [Tony and Ziva] would be very conscious of. So I think they would tread lightly, which is why, in theory, we’re treading lightly and being very careful about the steps that we take.” (As for Cote de Pablo’s contract status for Season 11, as of Wednesday night, Glasberg had no update to share: “I wish I had information for you, but I don’t.”)

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NCIS closed out its tenth season with an episode that left a team divided, Gibbs with a sniper rifle in his hands, and someone we know in the crosshairs of said gun. (For a full recap, click here.)

So where do we go from here? Executive producer Gary Glasberg has the scoop:

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: I have to say, I couldn’t have predicted where this season was going to end.
GARY GLASBERG: Thank you. This has been a really fun season for me and fun for everyone because, first of all, we tried some very untraditional things. As Mark Harmon and others have said, we did multiple [episodes] that could have been season enders this season — the car crash, killing Ziva’s dad, the revenge factor of killing Bodnar. It was one thing after another and because of that, I wanted to do something different for the actual season finale. So we got into this case that Parsons (guest star Colin Hanks) was building against the team and against Gibbs, and I think it worked pretty well.

Tell me about how you arrived at that storyline.
One of the things we really started to think about was, ten seasons into a show — 234 episodes — [there were] so many cases, so many opportunities and ways that Gibbs handled things but maybe crossed some lines in the way that he handled them. And someone had to have noticed that somewhere along the way. There are people who are paying attention and what if someone — an investigator who was out for his own reasons — decided that this was the opportunity and the moment to go after them and basically say,’You can’t keep doing this.’ Ziva going after Bodnar was just sort of the straw that broke the camel’s back.

And, naturally, Gibbs had to get out of hot water, but that came with a price.
His team resigns and puts their badges down on Vance’s desk and Morrow, along with Vance and others, come to him and say, ‘We can make all of this go away if you help us with this case.’ And it’s, ultimately, a case linked to that head of the Navy SEAL that we were dealing with. All those threads will tie up.

To clarify: That case that Gibbs is working ties into the “threat on home soil” that Morrow mentioned, correct?
Exactly, yes. And, ultimately, jumping ahead four months, we don’t see who’s in that town car but we know it’s someone Fornell is protecting and we’re left with Fornell in Gibbs’ sights.

Well, I immediately thought, ‘Well, it can’t be Fornell…can it?’
Exactly! “Can it?” All the pieces will fit together, I promise.

How quickly? Tell me about how we pick up next season.
Yes. The episode will pick up and we’ll sort of see, in steps leading up to…[background chatter] Brian Dietzen is telling me to be very secretive and not tell you anything.

NO!
[Laughs] In the season opener, we will see the progression of time leading up to that moment that everyone just experienced, and in that progression, we’ll see the case that Gibbs is assigned to, the specifics of the case, how it is unfolded, who the players are, and then when we get to the exact moment. It will all make sense.

Is the whole episode that lead-up?
Yes.

Does that mean we’re also going to learn what McGee, Tony and Ziva were up to in those four jobless months?
Yes.

Have you already figured that out?
I’m starting to. There are a bunch of pieces that are floating around in my head and at some point, when I’m sitting on a beach in Hawaii I’ll figure it all out.

I do have to talk about some of the other characters, obviously. There were so many great character nuggets in this episode. First: McGee has a girlfriend!
The lovely Delilah. That will likely payoff at some point as well. We may even meet Delilah.

Is that something you want to do quickly next season?
I don’t know. It depends on how much I can handle in the opening episode. But, yeah, there are some threads and nuggets — there’s Delilah, there’s the Palmer baby. There are all kinds of little cookies in there that hopefully people will pick up on.

Tony and Ziva had a significant moment in this episode. The question I’m seeing most on Twitter: Did Ziva just ‘Friend zone’ Tony?
I don’t think so. I think there’s a little more to it than that. I think they’re sort of dancing around each other and trying to get a sense of how to move forward and, based on everything that’s happened in the last year, where they are and what the next step is going to be. And, you know, we’re letting it slowly percolate and build and hopefully get it to a place that’s going to be satisfying for everybody.

I thought the forehead kiss was a nice touch.
Thank you. It might not satisfy everyone out there, but I think we’re getting there — she even reaches up with her hand and puts it very gently, and in a lovely way, on his shoulder before that kiss happens. I think there are gestures being made that have definitely advanced from where we were a year ago.

I liked Abby’s video game, by the way. Can we get that released?
Isn’t that cool? Our post-production people did a fantastic job on that.

Any final words on the season?
This has been a really fantastic season for us. Best numbers we’ve ever had — more viewers than we’ve ever had. I couldn’t be more thrilled with the state the show is in. We’ve hired a couple of new writers, we’re already working on five or six of the stories for next season. Everybody is energized and ready to go. We’re going to take a few days off and come back and keep going. The show’s in a really fantastic place and we’re constantly surprising each other about where we want to go and what we want to do. And as long as we keep feeling that, I don’t really see an end in sight for NCIS.

This finale felt like a treat for people who have been watching. That’s not really the procedural way.
It’s true. It was definitely a different season ender but I feel like it’s been a very different season and in doing that, I wanted to come through with something that wasn’t what people normally would have expected. I certainly hope that’s what I deliverered.

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